Urgent Appeal – Iceland: A Death Trap for Whales

Over the years, your support has made a big difference in EIA’s efforts to save endangered cetaceans from indiscriminate slaughter. Among our accomplishments, we have exposed and reduced the unsustainable Dall’s porpoise hunt in Japanand have reduced the demand for cetacean meat within the country. We would have never been able to do it without your support, so thank you for your generosity.

But whales are not safe yet. Right now, minke whales are under attack off the coasts of Iceland and Iceland is threatening to hunt endangered fin whales later in the year.Iceland’s whalers have grown increasingly bold despite the 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling, catching 125 endangered fin whales in 2009 and in 2010, that number increased to 148. This year’s hunt quota is 154 fin whales. This is tragically significant since the global fin whale population has declined 70% in the last 80 years.

EIA has conducted an important investigation into the deplorable Icelandic fin whale hunt, and will publish an eye-opening report to be distributed this year at the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and internationally.

Shockingly, the revival of fin whale hunting within Iceland has been spearheaded by a single individual, a millionaire businessman with considerable ties toIceland’s most powerful fisheries company. While the country appears indifferent to the issue, he and his fellow whalers paint their activities as an integral part of the national Icelandic tradition.

The truth is that this man is not as concerned with Icelandic tradition as he purports to be. By reviving the Icelandic whaling industry, he hopes to create a valuable new market for whale products in Japan, making considerable profits at the expense of an endangered species.

Iceland is currently in negotiations to join the European Union, and seeking to continue whaling as an EU member. Many people in the Icelandic government are anti-whaling but are not able to address the issue as most of their information regarding the hunt comes straight from the whalers themselves. This lack of transparency is beneficial to the whaling industry and deadly for the whales. EIA has the evidence to inform the Icelandic government about what is really going on.

LAYERS OF TRAGEDY

Investigations by EIA earlier this year year showed that potentially a sizeable market for Icelandic whale products does in fact exist in Japan. However, some of the whale meat from Iceland is discarded once it reaches Japan because of its poor-quality, a saddening thought for those whales that lost their lives to obtain that meat.

What is equally disturbing about the current scenario in Icelandis that minke whale hunters and anti-whaling whale watching trips operate in the same waters. This means that the minke whales whose majestic beauty and grace are admired by curious whale watchers are the same creatures being caught and slaughtered by local whalers.

EIA is the perfect organisation to tackle the whaling problem in Iceland. With our signature investigative approach, we have uncovered the information that the whalers don’t want brought to light. The information contained in our report will be impossible to ignore. The IWC will be forced to take a stand against the brutality of the Icelandic whaling industry.

The aim of our efforts is three-fold:

Raise awareness ofIceland’s whaling activity for financial and political ends

Obtain a formal statement from the IWC condemning the Icelandic fin whale hunt

Put international pressure on Icelandto terminate the fin whale hunt in the country